Jack McCoy
Executive A.D.A. | affiliation = Manhattan District Attorney's Office | occupation = Attorney | family = Unnamed parents Unnamed ex-wife Ellen McCoy Rebecca McCoy Unnamed granddaughter Unnamed sibling Unnamed nephew Unnamed great niece | status = Alive | playedby = Sam Waterston | first = L&O: "Second Opinion" | last = SVU: "The Undiscovered Country" |}} John James McCoy, also known as Jack McCoy, was the District Attorney for the borough of Manhattan. McCoy was previously an Executive Assistant District Attorney. McCoy retired in 2019 and was replaced by Vanessa Hadid, who also became bureau chief for the Special Victims Unit. Biography Early life Jack's father, an Irish immigrant, was a police officer for 31 years in Chicago, Illinois. However, the elder McCoy was also abusive, beating both Jack and his mother, secure in the knowledge that his badge would protect him from the consequences. His father was also a racist, punching Jack for dating a Polish girl. He eventually died from lung cancer due to his excessive smoking. McCoy was raised Catholic and was educated by the Jesuits, but he has not been in practice for a long time. He allegedly lost his faith after the death of a childhood friend. In his teenage years, Jack rebelled, protesting against Vietnam and Nixon's policies, but did not find much satisfaction in being on the losing side. Sometime around 1966, Jack discovered the law. His rebel streak never quite went away, however; he drives a Yamaha motorcycle and was a huge fan of punk rock bands such as The Clash. College life Jack became a lawyer, apparently graduating from New York University in 1970. In 1972, he published a piece in the New York University Law Review defending Catholic priests who refused to be enlisted due to religious objections to the Vietnam War. During that time, he worked for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Lawyer life .]]McCoy served as an ADA and EADA for 24 years. During this time, he worked with three female ADAs and had relationships with all of them - something he was known for. One of them, Ellen, became his wife and the mother of his only child, Rebecca. Another, Diana Hawthorne, later went to jail for asking an expert witness to change his testimony in one case so that McCoy would win and get a promotion, unbeknownst to him. The third assistant was Sally Bell, a defense attorney. McCoy often bends—and sometimes breaks—trial rules to get convictions, finds tenuous rationales for charging defendants with crimes when the original charges fail to stick, and charges innocent people to frighten them into testifying against others. McCoy is more than once found in contempt of court for such behavior, and his tactics occasionally incur negative publicity for the DA's office. His underlying motivation, however, is a sincere desire to see justice done. To that end, McCoy has gone after defendants accused of perverting the justice system to arrange wrongful convictions with just as much determination as his more mundane cases. Such aggressive actions in the courts have earned him the nickname "Hang 'em High McCoy". He has subsequently developed a reputation with both colleagues and rival attorneys, once being referred to as "the top of the legal food chain" by a rival attorney during a case. He is also known for sleeping with his assistants. In 1994, Executive ADA Benjamin Stone resigned from his post in the wake of a case in which the main witness had been murdered by the Russian Mafia, and DA Adam Schiff appointed McCoy as Stone's successor. McCoy began to work closely with ADA Claire Kincaid, and it was revealed that they were lovers until her death in a car accident. McCoy felt extremely guilty about Kincaid's death due to the fact that a few weeks before it occurred, he had talked her out of quitting her job as an ADA. After a short period of time during which McCoy worked alone, ADA Jamie Ross became his partner. Although they had an amicable relationship, they never became lovers. In fact, McCoy never had an affair with any of his assistants after Kincaid's death and his love life was never mentioned again. His next assistant was Jamie Ross, a former defense attorney turned prosecutor, who left to spend more time with her daughter. Abbie Carmichael later replaced her, who left to work for the U.S. Attorney's office. She was replaced by Serena Southerlyn, who was fired for being too sympathetic towards the defendants. Next came Alexandra Borgia, who was kidnapped from her own apartment and found in the trunk of an abandoned car, bound, brutally beaten and dead of asphyxiation after choking on her own vomit because of her participation in a case. Outraged, McCoy arranged a sham prosecution to make sure her murderers went to prison for life, skirting legal ethics to the point that he almost faced disbarment and was replaced by a special prosecutor. Borgia's position was filled by Connie Rubirosa. When Arthur Branch resigned as the District Attorney, McCoy was appointed to succeed Branch as the District Attorney for the Borough of Manhattan. McCoy appointed ADA Michael Cutter as his successor in the position of EADA with Rubirosa as his partner. This is ironic since Branch told McCoy that he would never be DA ( : "Red Ball"). This is explained later: The New York Attorney General wanted ADA Josh Lethem appointed to the position while Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted someone else. To remedy this, Branch appointed McCoy so everyone's hands are clean and McCoy doesn't have to satisfy anyone's political agenda. ( : "Illegal") Clients *Anthony "Tony" Shaeffer ( : "Bronx Cheer") *Serena Southerlyn ( : "DR 1-102") Trivia *McCoy currently holds the record for most police officers prosecuted under his tenure. ( : "Illegal") *Jack was married at one point to a woman named Ellen. They had at least one daughter together, but ended up getting a divorce. That daughter was seen in the Season 17 episode "Fallout", and in 2009, McCoy mentioned that she was pregnant. ( : "Dignity") McCoy has been divorced at least twice however, as he remarked in Home Sweet that Alissa Goodwyn was his second ex-wife's divorce attorney. *He has been thrown in contempt of court 80 times. Appearances *''Law & Order'' (16 seasons, 367 episodes): **Season 5: "Second Opinion" • "Coma" • "Blue Bamboo" • "Family Values" • "White Rabbit" • "Competence" • "Precious" • "Virtue" • "Scoundrels" • "House Counsel" • "Guardian" • "Progeny" • "Rage" • "Performance" • "Seed" • "Wannabe" • "Act of God" • "Privileged" • "Cruel and Unusual" • "Bad Faith" • "Purple Heart" • "Switch" • "Pride" **Season 6: "Bitter Fruit" • "Rebels" • "Savages" • "Jeopardy" • "Hot Pursuit" • "Paranoia" • "Humiliation" • "Angel" • "Blood Libel" • "Remand" • "Corpus Delicti" • "Trophy" • "Charm City" • "Custody" • "Encore" • "Savior" • "Deceit" • "Atonement" • "Slave" • "Girlfriends" • "Pro Se" • "Homesick" • "Aftershock" **Season 7: "Causa Mortis" • "I.D." • "Good Girl" • "Survivor" • "Corruption" • "Double Blind" • "Deadbeat" • "Family Business" • "Entrapment" • "Legacy" • "Menace" • "Barter" • "Matrimony" • "Working Mom" • "D-Girl" • "Turnaround" • "Showtime" • "Mad Dog" • "Double Down" • "We Like Mike" • "Passion" • "Past Imperfect" • "Terminal" **Season 8: "Thrill" • "Denial" • "Navy Blues" • "Harvest" • "Nullification" • "Baby, It's You" • "Blood" • "Shadow" • "Burned" • "Ritual" • "Under the Influence" • "Expert" • "Castoff" • "Grief" • "Faccia a Faccia" • "Divorce" • "Carrier" • "Stalker" • "Disappeared" • "Burden" • "Bad Girl" • "Damaged" • "Tabloid" • "Monster" **Season 9: "Cherished" • "DWB" • "Bait" • "Flight" • "Agony" • "Scrambled" • "Venom" • "Punk" • "True North" • "Hate" • "Ramparts" • "Haven" • "Hunters" • "Sideshow" • "Disciple" • "Harm" • "Shield" • "Juvenile" • "Tabula Rasa" • "Empire" • "Ambitious" • "Admissions" • "Refuge (1)" • "Refuge (2)" **Season 10: "Gunshow" • "Killerz" • "DNR" • "Merger" • "Justice" • "Marathon" • "Patsy" • "Blood Money" • "Sundown" • "Loco Parentis" • "Collision" • "Mother's Milk" • "Panic" • "Entitled" • "Fools For Love" • "Trade This" • "Black, White and Blue" • "Mega" • "Surrender Dorothy" • "Untitled" • "Narcosis" • "High & Low" • "Stiff" • "Vaya Con Dios" **Season 11: "Endurance" • "Turnstile Justice" • "Dissonance" • "Standoff" • "Return" • "Burn, Baby, Burn" • "Amends" • "Thin Ice" • "Hubris" • "Whose Monkey is it Anyway?" • "Sunday in the Park with Jorge" • "Teenage Wasteland" • "Phobia" • "A Losing Season" • "Swept Away - A Very Special Episode" • "Bronx Cheer" • "Ego" • "White Lie" • "Whiplash" • "All My Children" • "Brother's Keeper" • "School Daze" • "Judge Dread" • "Deep Vote" **Season 12: "Who Let the Dogs Out?" • "Armed Forces" • "For Love or Money" • "Soldier of Fortune" • "Possession" • "Formerly Famous" • "Myth of Fingerprints" • "The Fire This Time" • "3 Dawg Night" • "Prejudice" • "The Collar" • "Undercovered" • "DR 1-102" • "Missing" • "Access Nation" • "Born Again" • "Girl Most Likely" • "Equal Rights" • "Slaughter" • "Dazzled" • "Foul Play" • "Attorney Client" • "Oxymoron" • "Patriot" **Season 13: "American Jihad" • "Shangri-La" • "True Crime" • "Tragedy on Rye" • "The Ring" • "Hitman" • "Open Season" • "Asterisk" • "The Wheel" • "Mother's Day" • "Chosen" • "Under God" • "Absentia" • "Star Crossed" • "Bitch" • "Suicide Box" • "Genius" • "Maritime" • "Seer" • "Kid Pro Quo" • "House Calls" • "Sheltered" • "Couples" • "Smoke" **Season 14: "Bodies" • "Bounty" • "Patient Zero" • "Shrunk" • "Blaze" • "Identity" • "Floater" • "Embedded" • "Compassion" • "Ill-Conceived" • "Darwinian" • "Payback" • "Married with Children" • "City Hall" • "Veteran's Day" • "Can I Get a Witness?" • "Hands Free" • "Evil Breeds" • "Nowhere Man" • "Everybody Loves Raimondo's" • "Vendetta" • "Gaijin" • "Caviar Emptor" • "C.O.D." **Season 15: "Paradigm" • "The Dead Wives Club" • "The Brotherhood" • "Coming Down Hard" • "Gunplay" • "Cut" • "Gov Love" • "Cry Wolf" • "All in the Family" • "Enemy" • "Fixed" • "Mammon" • "Ain't No Love" • "Fluency" • "Obsession" • "The Sixth Man" • "License to Kill" • "Dining Out" • "Sects" • "Tombstone" • "Publish and Perish" • "Sport of Kings" • "In God We Trust" • "Locomotion" **Season 16: "Red Ball" • "Flaw" • "Ghosts" • "Age of Innocence" • "Life Line" • "Birthright" • "House of Cards" • "New York Minute" • "Criminal Law" • "Acid" • "Bible Story" • "Family Friend" • "Heart of Darkness" • "Magnet" • "Choice of Evils" • "Cost of Capital" • "America, Inc." • "Thinking Makes It So" • "Positive" • "Kingmaker" • "Hindsight" • "Invaders" **Season 17: "Fame" • "Avatar" • "Home Sweet" • "Fear America" • "Public Service Homicide" • "Profiteer" • "In Vino Veritas" • "Release" • "Deadlock" • "Corner Office" • "Remains of the Day" • "Charity Case" • "Talking Points" • "Church" • "Melting Pot" • "Murder Book" • "Good Faith" • "Bling" • "Fallout" • "Captive" • "Over Here" • "The Family Hour" **Season 18: "Called Home" • "Darkness" • "Misbegotten" • "Bottomless" • "Driven" • "Political Animal" • "Quit Claim" • "Illegal" • "Executioner" • "Tango" • "Betrayal" • "Submission" • "Angelgrove" • "Burn Card" • "Bogeyman" • "Strike" • "Personae Non Gratae" • "Excalibur" **Season 19: "Rumble" • "Challenged" • "Lost Boys" • "Falling" • "Knock Off" • "Sweetie" • "Zero" • "Chattel" • "By Perjury" • "Pledge" • "Illegitimate" • "Crimebusters" • "Rapture" • "Bailout" • "Take-Out" • "Anchors Away" • "Promote This!" • "All New" • "Exchange" • "Skate or Die" • "The Drowned and the Saved" **Season 20: "Memo From The Dark Side" • "Just a Girl in the World" • "Great Satan" • "Reality Bites" • "Dignity" • "Human Flesh Search Engine" • "Boy Gone Astray" • "Doped" • "For the Defense" • "Shotgun" • "Fed" • "Blackmail" • "Steel-Eyed Death" • "Boy on Fire" • "Brilliant Disguise" • "Innocence" • "Four Cops Shot" • "Brazil" • "Crashers" • "The Taxman Cometh" • "Immortal" • "Love Eternal" • "Rubber Room" *''Homicide: Life on the Street'' (2 seasons, 2 episodes): **Season 6: "Baby, It's You (2)" **Season 7: "Sideshow (2)" *''Exiled: A Law & Order Movie'' *''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'' (4 seasons, 4 episodes): **Season 1: "Entitled" **Season 9: "Blinded" **Season 11: "Torch" **Season 19: "The Undiscovered Country" *''Law & Order: Trial by Jury'' (2 episodes): **Season 1: "The Abominable Showman" • "Skeleton" de:Jack McCoy Category:Executive Assistant District Attorneys Category:District Attorneys Category:L&O Characters Category:SVU Characters Category:TBJ Characters Category:Males Category:Crossover Characters Category:SVU Recurring Characters Category:L&O Main Characters Category:TBJ Recurring Characters Category:Defense Attorneys Category:Retired or Resigned